Incongruence Between Implicit Attachment Schemes and Unconscious Attachment Representations

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Attachment Theory
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Unconscious attachment processes are often assessed using reaction time-based implicit measures or language-based interviews.
• Empirical investigation into the equivalence of these distinct assessment approaches is lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the empirical equivalence between the Adult Attachment Interview (language-based) and the Implicit Association Test (reaction time-based) for measuring unconscious attachment.

Main Methods:

• Adult Attachment Interview and Implicit Association Test administered to panic disorder patients (n=157) and healthy controls (n=138).
• Participants were diagnosed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, axis I and II disorders.

Main Results:

• Securely attached individuals exhibited more positive maternal attitudes than insecurely attached individuals.
• In healthy individuals, secure and disorganized attachment classifications showed more positive maternal attitudes than insecure classifications and the patient group.
• Implicit attachment patterns (reaction time) were not equivalent to explicit attachment representations (language markers).

Conclusions:

• Reaction time-based implicit attachment measures and language-based explicit measures capture different aspects of attachment representation.
• No significant differences were found in information processing for disorganized attachment between memory/association networks and autobiographic memory functions.